Lucy's Portrait

Onto sister number three of four this week. Loving this set I’m working on and hope you find it interesting to follow their progress. It’s not often I have so many people on my easel, a break from furries!

The finished painting 12″x10″ soft pastel

This past week we’ve been travelling around the Southern coastline of Spain close to Cadiz. Stopping at different beaches and meeting people from all over, mostly surfers. We’re still travelling around with our two new friends with whom we’re parting ways in a couple of days. There have been some great evenings when I’m done with work for the day. It’s been a real pleasure to have so much new company on this leg of our tour.

But in between all that of course I need to maintain my balance of work and life. It’s not always easy when the sun is beaming and you can hear activity going on outside.

Hope you enjoy Lucy’s progress and a few shots I took from the past week.

My initial line drawing transferred onto the velour. I often just transfer a basic outline although in my preparitory sketch there is a little more line and shading to get her structure. But once I have the proportions I just got from here with the colour. This is where the painting techniques start and drawing ends.

My gradient backdrop in, it’s pretty similar to the others so they will work together. But I’m also trying to make each a little different.

Starting work on Lucy’s skintone. Quite a few layers down at this point.

Starting to define some of the features a little. Constantly blending and adding smaller areas of colour.

One of our beach stops in El Palmar provides us with uniterupted beach view and the most beautiful sunsets for a couple of evenings.

Also nearby was a good cafe with wifi for me to post my last blog. I’m always on the lookout for wifi. This lifestyle means I have to always know where I’m going to find everything I need depending on what country I’m in. Soon we’ll be crossing into Portugal and I’ll have a whole other language to figure out!

I use some pastel pencil to define around the eyes. It’s tricky to not make a child’s eyes look too dark and adult like. But Lucy has particularly dark brown eyes so lots of darkness is required while still keeping them soft.

I use a lot of lilac in her face as she was reflecting a lot of her top in the photograph.

I also use some pastel pencil around the mouth area and teeth. The sharp points are helpful for making marks and also pushing around the soft pastel I have applied already.

Neatening up some of the edges.

After we leave the beach we head for Cadiz. That’s the big bridge in the background leading us to where we park for a night to explore the city in the afternoon.

I didn’t bring my camera into Cadiz but we’ll visit it again for sure as it’s very pretty! I did manage one selfie with a piece of Dali graffiti I liked.

On the home stretch now with just the hair and jumper to do as well as some last tweaks.

Using very soft light pinks and lilacs to tone with her face. Also some blue violet in the shadows.

A few last tweaks on her lashes with a sharp point.

The lightest tones on the jumper start to bring it to life. I’m leaving it quite loose, I like the fact that the jumpers in this set do look a little more painterly.